Government 
Ownership  g 

Telephones 


h 

MITCHELL  MANNERING 


Reprint  from 

NATIONAL  MAGAZINE 

Boston,  July,  1914 


tA: 


Government  Ownership 
of    Telephones 


Mitchell  Mannering 


Experience  in  other  countries,  where  the  telephone  service  is  under  government  control, 

warns  that  retrogression  from  American  high  standards  would  result,  were  the  government 

to  assume  ownership  of  the  telephone  system 


CELEPHONE  statistics  are  like 
astronomical  calculations  in  their 
immensity.  More  than  twenty 
million  miles  of  wire  are  used 
in  the  construction  of  the  telephone  lines 
in  the  United  States,  a  gain  of  nearly 
fifteen  million  miles  during  the  last  decade. 
Nine  million  telephones  are  jingling  every 
hour  of  the  day  in  this  country;  twelve 
years  ago  there  were  only  three  million. 
During  1912  nearly  fourteen  billion  mes- 
sages or  talks  were  sent  over  the  wires  of 
telephone  companies  having  an  income  of 
more  than  five  thousand  dollars.  This 
includes  all  kinds  of  conversations,  long 
or  short,  counting  as  one  call  the  fifteen- 
minute  gossip  of  the  neighbors  in  the  early 
evening,  to  say  nothing  of  the  lingering 
love  chats.  These  figures  do  not  include 
the  messages  carried  over  the  million  and 
a  half  telephones  operated  by  smaller 
branch  companies,  which  were  not  required 
to  make  a  report. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  talk  of  govern- 
ment ownership  of  telephones  does  not 
appeal  to  millions  of  telephone  subscribers 
who  know  what  real  telephone  service 
means.  Evidence  accumulates  that  the 
solution  of  industrial  problems  depends 
more  upon  internal  evolution  than  upon 
external  legislation,  just  as  the  medical 
profession  has  learned  that  a  mere  applica- 
tion of  soothing  liniment,  or  "cupping  and 
bleeding,"  does  not  cure  or  prevent  disease. 
While  there  is  nothing  basically  wrong 
with  the  proposition  of  public  ownership, 


it  has  its  uses  and  abuses,  despite  the  fal- 
lacy that  public  ownership  is  indicative 
of  progress.  Russia  and  India,  two  of  the 
most  undeveloped  countries  in  the  world, 
have  the  most  extensive  government  owner- 
ship. The  experiences  of  the  last  decade, 
sharp  and  harassing  as  they  have  been, 
suggest  'that  the  government  could  better 
own,  regulate  and  check  abuses  of  private 
corporations  after  proving  efficiency  in 
operating  what  it  already  possesses.  Before 
the  government  seeks  further  to  extend 
ownership  activities  logically,  it  should 
first  prove  that  it  can  conduct  public 
affairs  more  efficiently  and  profitably  in 
the  interest  of  the  people  than  can  private 
corporations.  Has  this  been  done  hitherto? 

OELF-INTEREST  has  always  been  a 
^  cohesive  factor  in  society,  and  naturally 
inspires  efficient  management  of  a  private 
enterprise— where  a  management  under 
mere  government  control  grows  indiffer- 
ent, ineffective  and  too  often  arbitrary. 
Officials,  appointive  and  elective,  usually 
have  not  the  requisite  training  to  manage 
an  industrial  undertaking,  and  to  place  the 
country's  most  vital  method  of  communi- 
cation— the  telephone — in  the  hands  of 
political  adventurers,  with  appointees  in 
prospect,  is  retrogression  rather  than 
progress.  The  necessary  training  and 
experience  of  an  army  of  employees  in 
corporation  service  requires  years  of  con- 
centrated control,  with  an  opportunity  to 
assimilate  and  care  for  the  recruits  added 


347249 


GOVERNMENT    OWNERSHIP    OF    TELEPHONES 


from  time  to  time.  Chaos  in  government 
telephone  management  would  result  in  an 
outburst  of  public  indignation  that  would 
find  speedy  expression  with  a  universal 
blast  from  telephone  trumpets. 

A  vital  point  often  overlooked  in  the 
discussion  of  public  ownership  is  that  the 
state  and  nation  sacrifices  the  present  large 
income  derived  from  taxation,  which  is 
usually  in  excess  of  any  possible  profit 
to  be  realized  by  public  management, 
thereby  throwing  the  burden  of  deficits 
and  mismanagement  back  upon  the  people 
without  recourse.  The  necessities  for 
future  development  anticipated  by  private 
corporations  in  the  natural  expansion,  if 
left  dependent  upon  the  log-rolling  methods 
of  the  Rivers  and  the  Harbors  Pork  Barrel 
Appropriation  in  Congress,  would  reflect 
sectional  bias  and  political  power.  The 
real  success  that  has  commended  the 
admiration  of  the  world  in  American 
industrial  operations  has  been  due  to  a 
freedom  of  action,  not  possible  from  public 
officials  who,  with  their  ears  to  the  ground, 
are  naturally  first  concerned  in  protecting 
their  political  life.  The  best  men  for  man- 
agement could  not  be  secured  under  such 
conditions.  Public  accounting  of  public 
ownership  operations  seldom  reflects  the 
true  state  of  affairs,  for  government  de- 
partments naturally  perform  free  service 
for  one  another  without  charge,  making  it 
difficult  to  compute  actual  cost  and  defi- 
nite expense,  but  it  all  shows  up  when  the 
government  revenues  begin  running  behind 
millions  of  dollars  every  day,  as  at  the 
present  time.  Even  the  highest  type  of 
government  official  often  sees  no  harm  in 
making  political  capital  by  skimping 
needed  repairs  and  improvements,  only 
to  pass  a  possible  defeat  on  to  his  successor, 
while  the  public  suffers  as  a  consequence. 

THERE  are  some  public  utilities  that 
naturally  and  logically  should  be 
owned  by  the  government,  but  this  does 
not  mean  invasion  of  the  fields  of  general 
business,  on  the  ground  that  the  govern- 
ment can  obtain  capital  at  lower  rates  of 
interest  than  private  corporations  for 
expansions.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  in  this  case  the  government  would 
pledge  the  property  of  all  citizens,  no 
matter  whether  they  objected  or  not. 
Money  so  raised  is  simply  forcing  a 


mortgage,  indirect  though  it  may  be,  on 
every  man,  woman  and  child  without  his 
consent  or  vote,  and  means  an  increased 
amount  of  outstanding  government  bonds, 
with  a  tendency  of  higher  rates,  for  when 
the  government  enters  the  field  as  an 
increasingly  big  borrower,  the  rates  gradu- 
ally go  up.  Interest  on  the  capital  and 
fixed  charges  must  be  paid  by  the  govern- 
ment, whether  earned  or  not,  which  is  not 
true  of  private  corporations,  which  often 
operate  many  years  without  a  dividend. 

The  labor  question,  too,  is  involved  in 
every  question  of  public  ownership.  What 
has  the  experience  of  other  countries  taught 
us?  In  France  and  elsewhere,  strikes  have 
not  been  eliminated  by  public  ownership. 
On  the  contrary,  labor  disturbances  have 
been  aggravated,  and  in  striking  against 
the  government  the  laboring  man  is  met 
with  the  stern  edict  of  the  bayonet.  There 
is  no  appeal  or  industrial  "goats"  to  shear. 
Rather  than  alleviating  the  relations  be- 
tween labor  and  capital,  government 
ownership  tended  to  make  the  strained 
conditions  of  the  laboring  man  more  and 
more  hopeless.  This  personal  equation 
is  not  to  be  overlooked.  Contrast  today 
the  employee  of  a  well-managed  corpora- 
tion with  the -employee  of  the  government. 
In  one  there  is  hope  and  aspiration,  in  the 
other  the  lethargy  of  governmental  red 
tape.  The  government  employee's  one 
hope  of  advancement  comes  from  political 
influence,  or  from  promotion  after  the 
death  of  someone  ahead — and  initiative 
effort  is  not  inspired — for,  as  they  see — 
what's  the  use? — when  higher  up  officials 
have  their  records  first  to  serve. 

D  ECENTLY  I  came  upon  a  memoran- 
*^  dum  of  conclusions  carefully  prepared 
by  a  public  ownership. librarian,  who  had 
begun  his  work  with  a  firm  belief  in  public 
ownership.  The  result  of  his  study  of  the 
matter  is  interesting,  even  to  the  casual 
reader: 

"If  I  were  to  sum  up,  in  a  single  word, 
the  object  lesson  to  be  derived  from  a  com- 
pilation and  study  of  public  ownership 
literature,  I  should  say  that  'inadequacy' 
appears  to  be  the  one  dominant  character- 
istic of  all  publicly -owned  utilities;  in- 
adequacy to  satisfy  the  public  need  with 
anything  like  the  completeness  of  which 
private  management  is  capable.  The  de- 


GOVERNMENT    OWNERSHIP    OF    TELEPHONES- 


5 


gree  of  inadequacy  varies  with  the  country 
and  the  character  of  its  government.  It 
also  varies  with  the  utility.  In  the  tele- 
phone service,  public  management  has 
shown  itself  to  be  particularly  inadequate. 

" Adequacy  in  telephone  management, 
to  my  mind,  means  primarily  two  things: 
dependability  of  service,  and  extent  of 
service.  In  both  these  particulars  public 
ownership  has  shown  itself  to  be  distinctly 
a  failure.  Dependability,  for  instance, 
is  almost  wholly  lacking  in  the  French 
telephone  system.  The  French  subscriber, 
if  he  has  an  urgent  message,  with  much 
depending  upon  prompt  communication, 
will  not  infrequently  prefer  a  messenger, 
or  his  own  legs,  to  his  telephone  instrument. 
Previous  experience  has  taught  him  that 
the  chance  of  a  ten  or  fifteen-minute  delay 
in  reaching  his  party — indeed,  of  not 
reaching  his  party  at  all — is  not  altogether 
remote.  The  same  is  true,  in  a  measure, 
of  the  other  European  countries  with 
government  telephone  service.  The  Hon. 
C.  S.  Goldman,  M.  P.,  has  described  the 
British  telephone  as  'the  get-them-when- 
you-can-service.'  Remarkable  testimony 
was  given  in  a  German  court  some  time 
ago  by  a  Commissioner  in  Lunacy,  to  the 
effect  that  the  exasperation  from  getting 
no  reply  from  'Central'  was  sufficient  to 
make  men  actually  mad;  and  in  the  long 
distance  service,  it  is  not  an  uncommon 
occurence,  in  Germany,  to  wait  in  line 
for  hours  for  an  out-of-town  call,  only  to 
be  told  by  a  government  official,  at  the 
end,  that  the  trunks  are  all  engaged. 
Dependability,  to  the  extent  enjoyed  by 
the  American  telephone  subscriber,  is 
wholly  unknown  to  the  publicly -operated 
telephone  system  of  Europe. 

"Extent  of  service  is  equally  important. 
A  single  telephone,  however  perfectly 
constructed,  can  be  no  more  than  a  me- 
chanical curiosity.  A  million  isolated 
telephones  are  no  more  useful  than  a 
million  isolated  orators  talking  to  the  sands 
of  a  beach.  Two  telephones,  with  a  con- 
nection between  them  represent  the  small- 
est unit  of  service.  The  efficiency  and 
value  of  the  service  increase  in  geometrical 
proportion  with  the  number  of  telephones 
capable  of  being  reached.  A  restricted 
telephone  service  is,  therefore,  more  than 
in  any  other  business,  a  commercial 
tragedy. 


Ylf/E  can  readily  see  this  when  we  real- 
**  ize  that  the  whole  fabric  of  Ameri- 
can civilization  is,  to  a  large  extent,  built 
around  the  telephone.  In  the  cities,  for 
instance,  the  telephone  has  made  possible 
the  skyscraper's  airy  accommodations,  the 
closely-knit,  time-saving  offices,  the  apart- 
ment house  and  hotels,  which  raise  people 
above  the  noise  and  dust  of  the  street. 
Outside  the  city,  it  has  made  suburbs 
blossom  out  of  waste  places;  where  the 
business  man  might  before  have  balked  at 
suburban  life,  with  the  distance  it  throws 
between  business  and  home,  he  now  knows 
that,  aided  by  a  shining  instrument  and 
two  wires,  he  can  be  put  in  instant  touch 
with  the  business  world.  Beyond  the 
suburbs  and  into  the  rural  districts,  the 
telephone  has  made  its  way,  furnishing 
the  American  farmer  and  his  family  facili- 
ties for  communication  unknown  in  any 
other  part  of  the  world.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  no  other  influence  has  stimulated  the 
'back  to  the  farm'  movement,  as  has  the 
telephone.  It  is  rapidly  banishing  the 
loneliness  which,  in  the  past,  so  discouraged 
the  rural  population,  and  drove  people 
from  the  large  and  solitary  areas  of  Ameri- 
can farms  and  ranches.  Politically, too, 
the  telephone  has  made  its  influence  felt; 
wiping  out  the  local  prejudices  imposed  by 
state  lines,  county  lines  and  township 
lines,  knitting  the  country  together,  and 
relegating  the  roorbach  to  the  limbo  of  the 
past.  The  Bell  Telephone  System  lays 
claim  to  a  total  of  7,500,000  telephones, 
but  this  is  no  adequate  indication  of  the 
extent  to  which  the  telephone  has  worked 
its  way  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  American 
life.  In  the  cities,  particularly,  there  are 
thousands  of  public  telephones,  many  of 
them  used  by  hundreds  of  different  people 
a  day.  Money  is  moved  by  telephone; 
trains  are  moved  by  telephone;  buildings, 
bridges,  tunnels,  reservoirs  and  all  sorts 
of  public  works  are  built  by  telephone; 
carriages  and  cars  are  called,  employees 
secured,  emergency  help  summoned — the 
whole  machinery  of  American  civilization 
kept  going  by  the  use  of  an  instrument 
which  many  a  Frenchman  and  Englishman 
today  refuses  to  use  in  place  of  his  legs. 

WHEN  we  consider  what  an  intimate 
part    of   American    civilization   the 
telephone  utility  has  become,  we  can  see 


GOVERNMENT    OWNERSHIP    OF    TELEPHONES 


what  an  advantage  we  have  over  those 
countries  where  the  telephone  has  been 
made  to  wait  at  the  government's  door, 
and  beg  for  such  financial  sustenance  as 
political  expediency  can  afford  to  throw  it. 
There  are  now,  in  this  country,  nine 
million  telephones.  The  United  States 
has  sixty -five  per  cent  of  all  the  telephones 
in  the  world.  It  has  only  five  and  five- 
tenths  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the 
world.  We  have,  per  inhabitant,  ten  times 
as  many  telephones  as  Europe,  where 
government  ownership  is  the  rule  rather 
than  the  exception;  and  this  despite  our 
comparatively  sparse  and  widely -scattered 
population. 

"Great  Britain  has  but  seven  hundred 
.thousand  or  one  and  five-tenths  telephones 
for  every  hundred  Englishmen,  as  against 
eight  and  eight-tenths  telephones  for 
every  hundred  Americans.  The  American 
can  reach  by  telephone  six  of  his  fellow 
citizens,  where  the  Briton  can  reach  one. 

"In  all  France,  there  are  only  slightly 
more  than  the  number  of  telephones  in 
New  York  City  alone. 

"In  Germany  there  are  but  one  and 
eight-tenths  telephones  per  hundred  popu- 
lation, so  that  the  American  instrument  is 
five  times  as  useful  in  reaching  people  as 
the  German. 

"Sweden,  Norway  and  Denmark  have 
given  more  freedom  to  private  initiative 
than  any  other  of  the  important  European 
countries,  so  that  the  telephone  develop- 
ment, in  proportion  to  population,  is 
greater  than  in  any  other  country  of  the 
old  world. 

"In  Stockholm,  the  Stockholm  Telephone 
Company  operates  in  competition  with  a 
State  system,  and  the  Company  not  only 
has  twice  as  many  telephones  in  Stockholm 
as  has  the  State,  but  has  about  one-third 
of  all  the  telephones  in  Sweden.  Even  at 
that,  the  influence  of  State  development  is 
so  far  felt  that  the  total  development  of 
the  country  is  but  three  and  six-tenths 
telephones  per  hundred  population,  making 
its  telephone  facilities  not  half  as  great 
as  those  of  the  United  States. 

"In  Norway,  the  development  of  the 
telephone  service  was  originally  left  en- 
tirely to  private  initiative.  About  fifteen 
years  ago,  however,  the  government  de- 
cided to  adminster  the  telephone  service, 
but  instead  of  seeking  to  develop  new 


fields,  it  confined  itself  chiefly  to  absorbing 
exchanges  of  the  more  populous  and  profit- 
able areas.  This  threw  the  burden  of  the 
less  profitable  rural  development  upon 
private  parties,  a  serious  handicap.  And 
yet  the  State  has,  today,  only  about  one- 
half  of  all  the  telephones  in  Norway,  the 
rest  being  private.  The  total  development 
of  the  country  is  two  and  seven-tenths 
telephones  per  hundred  of  population,  or 
less  than  one-third  the  development  of  the 
United  States. 

"In  Denmark,  public  ownership  is 
confined  solely  to  inter-company  long 
distance  lines,  exchange  service  being 
entirely  operated  by  private  ownership 
under  public  supervision.  Danish  condi- 
tions are,  therefore,  in  part  comparable 
to  those  in  the  United  States,  and  it  is 
not  surprising  to  find  that  the  telephone 
development  of  Denmark  is  three  and 
nine-tenths  telephones  per  hundred  popu- 
lation, which,  although  less  than  one-half 
that  of  the  United  States,  is  nevertheless 
higher  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world, 
except  in  Canada. 

"As  to  Canada,  the  telephone  service  is 
chiefly  supplied  by  private  initiative, 
although  in  three  western  provinces  the 
service  is  a  government  monopoly.  Cana- 
dians have,  in  the  main,  the  same  char- 
acteristics as  Americans,  so  that  their 
telephone  service  is  more  like  ours  than 
that  of  any  other  nation.  Canada  has 
354,000  telephones,  a  development  of 
four  and  nine-tenths  telephones  per  hun- 
dred population,  compared  with  eight  and 
eight-tenths  telephones  per  hundred  popu- 
lation in  the  United  States.  Canadian 
experience  in  government  (provincial) 
ownership  has  been  of  short  duration,  and 
results  have  been  far  from  convincing, 
notably  in  Manitoba,  where  dissatisfaction 
with  the  telephone  service  reached  such 
a  stage  last  year,  that  it  was  necessary  to 
appoint  a  Royal  Telephone  Commission 
to  investigate  the  government's  operations. 

"In  Switzerland  the  telephone  system 
is  owned  and  operated  by  the  govern- 
ment, with  the  result  that  there  are  two 
and  two-tenths  telephones  per  hundred 
population. 

"Italy  has  not  quite  as  many  telephones 
as  the  city  of  San  Francisco.  The  whole  of 
Russia  has  fewer  telephones  than  Chicago, 
and  Greece  has  less  than  a  single  American 


GOVERNMENT    OWNERSHIP     OF     TELEPHONES 


building — the  Hudson  Terminal  Building 
in  New  York  City. 

"The  total  number  of  telephones  in  all 
the  other  countries  of  Europe  is  consider- 
ably less  than  may  be  found  in  two  Ameri- 
can cities — Chicago  and  Philadelphia;  the 
whole  of  South  Africa  has  less  than  Boston ; 
and  the  remainder  of  the  world,  including 
Asia,  Africa  and  Oceanica,  has  less  than  the 
single  city  of  New  York. 

"The  Imperial  Government  of  Japan 
has  pointed  with  pride  to  its  telephone 
service,  because  its  apparatus  and  operat- 
ing methods  follow  those  of  the  Bell  Tele- 
phone Company  in  the  'United  States. 
But  Japan,  with  all  her  wonderful  imita- 
tive skill  and  thoroughness  of  execution, 
has  been  unable  to  escape  the  inexorable 
law  of  government  operation,  and  the 
service  has  been  so  restricted  by  govern- 
mental policy,  with  its  multitude  of  'other 
political  exigencies,'  that  a  Japanese 
telephone  subscriber  considers  himself  a 
privileged  character,  and  can  sell  his 
privilege  at  a  good  round  premium. 

•"THE  fact  that  inadequacy  is  so  univer- 
*  sal,  as  a  mark  of .  government  ad- 
ministration of  the  telephone  service,  leads 
inevitably  to  the  conclusion  that  the  one 
is  a  result  of  the  other.  The  cause  is  ob- 
vious. Governmental  machinery  is  itself 
inadequate  to  handle  the  requirements  of 
a  service  so  complicated  as  the  telephone. 
Xo  government,  for  instance,  is  capable  of 
the  financial  prevision  which  has  been 
required  to  build  up  the  American  Bell 
System.  It  is  inconceivable,  for  instance, 
that  Congress  would  devote  itself  to  an 
accurate  and  scientific  mapping  out  of 
telephone  requirements,  twenty  years  in 
advance — a  practice  which  the  present 
high  standard  of  telephone  efficiency  has 
demanded  in  private  initiative  in  this 
country.  The  present  stage  of  telephone 
development  in  the  United  States  would 
have  been  impossible,  but  for  an  absolute 
guaranty  of  stability  for  a  definite  period 
of  time  in  the  future;  a  complete  freedom 
from  the  gusts  of  opposing  policies,  politi- 
cal or  otherwise,  an  atmosphere  or  reason- 
able expectation  that  deliberate  and  pains- 
taking planning  would  be  followed  by 
equally  deliberate  and  painstaking  execu- 
tion. What  government  on  earth  is 
capable  of  this  sort  of  management?" 


As  the  people  analyze  some  of  the  allur- 
ing propositions  which  attracted  them 
during  the  past  decade,  they  realize  that 
even  a  good  policy,  if  pursued  too  far,  may 
become  a  mania.  Such  is  the  experience 
of  the  good  people  of  New  Zealand,  whose 
public  debt,  after  the  government  assumed 
operation  of  the  public  utilities  including 
the  telephone,  amounts  to  the  entire 
capitalized  values  of  all  the  railroad, 
telephone  and  telegraphic  interests  in  that 
country;  this  shows  that  some  of  the  wild 
theories  of  socialistic  legislation  proposed 
by  political  leaders  lacked  the  saving 
admixture  of  plain  common-sense  and 
facts.  And  yet  New  Zealand  telephones 
can  be  used  only  from  nine  in  the  morning 
to  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  while 
eighty  per  cent  of  the  offices  are  closed  on 
Sundays  and  holidays.  Imagine  the 
American  people  tolerating  such  a  state 
of  affairs.  If  you  ever  watched  the  faces 
of  those  obliged  to  wait  upon  a  delayed 
call,  fancy  what  their  expression  would 
be  should  any  retrogression  in  customary 
telephonic  services  occur.  And  were  the 
United  States  to  take  over  public  utilities, 
it  might  be  found  expedient  to  lower  the 
rate  of  wages  to  the  standard  set  in  Eng- 
land, were  operators  to  receive  only  forty 
per  cent  of  the  pay  given  Bell  operators 
in  this  country.  How  long  would  these 
invidious  conditions  last? 

OVERNMENT  ownership  of  telephone 
interests  is  advocated  by  Congressman 
David  J.  Lewis  of  Maryland,  who  wants  a 
commission  to  consider  and  report  on  a 
project  for  the  national  postalization  of  the 
telephone  network  of  the  United  States; 
he  set  forth  the  details  of  his  plan  in  a 
report  of  thirty -five  pages  in  the  Congres- 
sional Record,  proposing  a  federal  invest- 
ment of  nine  hundred  million  dollars.  His 
argument  in  its  minor  premises  and  figures 
is  simply  a  glaring  imitation  of  the  ancient 
methods  of  the  politician  who  sought  to  win 
votes  by  condemning  corporations  promis- 
cuously without  regard  to  facts  or  reason. 

For  a  man  in  private  bigness  to  figure 
on  a  venture  with  an  arbitrary  assumption 
of  the  value  of  private*  property,  or  by 
guessing  at  the  value  of  what  he  wants  to 
"absorb"  would  seem  a  hazardous  pro- 
ceeding. But  Mr.  Lewis  sketches  with 
a  free  hand,  his  logic  based  on  figures 


8 


GOVERNMENT    OWNERSHIP     OF     TELEPHONES 


marshalled  under  the  subtle  phrase  "it 
is  assumed" — a  rather  shifty  way  of  predi- 
cating the  value  of  the  telephone  proposi- 
tion at  nine  hundred  million  dollars.  Of 
course,  he  covers  weak  points  by  suggesting 
a  final  appraisal  by  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission.  He  proposed  to  leave 
out  at  present  the  farmers,  and  other  co- 
operative telephone  exchanges  or  telegraph 
properties,  because,  as  he  explained  it, 
such  telephone  and  telegraph  service  can 
be  provided  by  means  of  telephone  wires, 
a  suggestion  that  seems  to  him  to  pave  the 
way  for  the  ultimate  extermination  of 
everything  that  looks  like  a  corporation. 
When  he  asserts  that  the  service  of  the 
United  States  telephone  and  telegraph 
companies  is  inadequate  and  that  the  rates 
are  higher  compared  with  those  of  other 
countries,  his  whole  flimsy  plea  falls  to 
pieces  because  it  is  not  founded  on  truth. 

PVO-THIRDS  of  the  telephone  mileage 
wire  in  the  world  is  operated  in  the 
United  States,  and  anyone  who  has  had 
experience  abroad  knows  that  American 
telephone  service  is  unsurpassed,  and  the 
best  service  can  never  be  the  cheapest. 
Three  thousand  miles  being  the  maximum 
length  of  telephone  wires  in  the  United 
States,  the  average  distances  covered  per 
message  are  immensely  longer  here  than 
in  other  countries  where  it  runs  low — 
sixty-five  miles  in  Belgium,  and  a  little 
over  five  hundred  miles  in  New  Zealand. 
More  than  thirty  per  cent  of  the  business 
of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company 
is  carried  eight  hundred  miles,  nearly 
twice  the  average  of  other  countries,  and 
more  than  one-half  of  the  telegraph 
messages  in  this  country  exceed  two  hun- 
dred miles.  It  is  very  plain  that  the  short- 
distance  messages  of  Great  Britain  must 
be  necessarily  much  lower  than  the  long- 
distance messages  of  the  United  States. 

Further,  as  every  traveler  knows,  an 
address  is  not  charged  for  in  this  country 
as  in  European  countries,  and,  as  an 
ordinary  direction  requires  twelve  words, 
this  large  percentage  of  a  message  carried 
free  in  the  United  States  should  not  be 
ignored,  as  it  is  in  the  Lewis  comparisons. 
The  immense  sums  paid  out  by  England 
and  France  in  supporting  the  government 
telegraph  are  not  considered  by  Mr.  Lewis, 
but  they  do  appear  in  reports  on  the  tele- 


graph business  of  foreign  countries — for 
instance,  $4,600,000  in  England;  in  France, 
$1,800,000;  in  Germany,  $3,500,000,  and 
so  on,  trifles  which  the  Congressman  has 
overlooked. 

HPHE  figures  given  as  to  telephone  opera- 
*  tive  efficiency  do  not  take  into  con- 
sideration the  joint  telephone  and  tele- 
graph service.  In  summarizing  the  calls 
made  per  employee,  a  foreign  paper  has 
pointed  out  that  Mr.  Lewis'  report  gives 
the  figures  of  sixty-seven  thousand,  while 
thirty-eight  thousand  is  the  correct  basis, 
and  in  the  case  of  the  Bell  organization, 
the  efficiency  (including  all  employees) 
was  about  seventy-two  thousand  calls  per 
employee,  against  thirty-eight  thousand 
named  by  a  foreign  authority,  or  fifty- j 
eight  thousand  as  claimed  by  the  Lewis 
report.  This  discounting  by  useless  figures  j 
of  the  efficiency  of  the  American  telephone 
girl  is  justly  resented  by  the  operators. 
It  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  rates  with 
the  American  people  as  it  is  of  service. 
The  leadership  maintained  and  developed  j 
by  American  energy  is  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  individual  enterprise  that  distin- 
guishes America  from  all  other  countries. 
It  is  coming  right  down  to  the  question 
as  to  whether  this  quality  shall  become  | 
obsolescent  and  atrophied. 

Carried  to  this  logical  conclusion,  the! 
people  are  beginning  to  realize  that  regu-J 
lation    as    conducted    by    the    Interstat 
Commerce  Commission  in  the  case  of 
railroads  is  as  far  as  the  government  can] 
go,  if  a  Republican  form  of  governmenl 
is   to   be   maintained.     There   can   be   a| 
popular  tyranny  in  going  too  far  alon^ 
these  lines  that  will  tend  to  uproot  Ameri- 
can representative  government,  and  sub- 
stitute the  stern  rule  of-monarchial  Europe; 
but  when  the  efficiency  of  American  tek 
phone    operators    is   misrepresented,there 
will  be  a  dispute  from  centrals  that  will 
ask  for  real  figures,  even  if  it  only  be 
gentle  "Number,  please?"    The  people  ar 
getting  the  real  number  in  some  of  theii 
alluring  demi-semi-ex-official  Congressional 
reports  that  do  an  injustice  to  the  efficiency 
of  American  employees,  and  of  the  servk 
they  have  rendered  through  the  mediui 
of  well-organized  corporations  that  under- 
stand   what    is    demanded    in    Americ 
public  service. 


GaylordBros. 

Makers 
Syr,r.use,  N- 


^^H^^^Bi 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


'& 


LD 


DEC?    1586 


LD  21A-50m-4,'60 
(A9562slO)476B 


General  Library 

UniTcrsify  of  Calif ornii 

Berkeley 


